UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #58 
IRWIN, MARGARET H.

IRWIN, Margaret H. (1900- )
Assistant to Harry Steenbock (Professor of Biochemistry); Instructor and Project Associate, Home Economics; Wife of Malcolm R. Irwin (Professor of Genetics, #057)
At UW: 1932-1935; 1941-1942; 1943-1944; 1950-1951

Interviewed: 	1973		
Interviewer: 	Donna Taylor
Length: 	59 minutes
Transcript: 	21 pages
Series: 	Women in Science and Engineering

Educational background; Harry Steenbock; Personalities in Agricultural Chemistry Department; Milk bulletin; Home Economics Department; Red Cross canteen course; Extension work; Discrimination against women; Farm housing bulletin; Atmosphere of freedom at UW.

First Interview Session (August 14, 1973): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:02	[Begin Tape 1/Side 1] Background of UW work.  Mr. Irwin's UW position, her work at Ames, Iowa.

00:01:50	Research in vitamin D with support from Lever Brothers; contemporary interest in nutrition and cholesterol problems, butter vs. oleo; research in digestibility of fats; birth of Irwin children and her disappearance from laboratory.

00:11:15	Dr. Harry Steenbock: his integrity, problems of being well-known for vitamin D work; attitude toward investment; Christmas parties.

00:17:40	Other Agricultural Chemistry personalities: Evelyn Van Donk (later Mrs.  Steenbock), E.B. Hart, Conrad Elvehjem, Karl Link.

00:22:01	Milk bulletin prepared by MI and Noble Clark; apparent discrimination by male faculty in not wanting a female author on it; change in attitude as evidenced by 1954 revised version.

00:27:03	Connection with Home Economics Department; teaching nutrition.

00:28:51	Red Cross canteen course and popularity of 35¢ lunches; extension work around state; wartime as period of strain but people all working together, contrasted with Korea or Vietnam; canteen course as "disaster class".

00:35:06	May Reynolds. 

00:37:32	Discrimination against women at UW; nepotism rule enforced when Mr. Irwin became Genetics Department chairman; end of association with Home Economics Department; unwillingness to fight it.

00:41:01	Farm housing bulletin authored with May Cowles, based on census data.

00:44:11	The William H. Petersons.

00:45:42	The Conrad Elvehjems: anecdote about experiment feeding chickens cod liver oil.

00:46:28	[End side 1; begin side 2] Continuation of anecdote.

00:47:39	Abby Marlatt.

00:49:31	Nutrition display case, shared by art education department.

00:51:59	Greater freedom felt at UW, for faculty expression and voicing of opinions both within departments and between them; also in relations with community and their criticism of university.

00:57:55	End of First Interview Session

End of Interview #58